Today I sent this letter to the Royal College of Surgeons in response to their online ‘Checklist for Patients Considering Plastic Surgery”…

RE: Feed back in response to your ‘Checklist for Patients Considering Plastic Surgery”.

A great document and what a great start to try and achieve some type of informed consent for women when undergoing plastic surgery.

However, unfortunately there are still surgeons practicing in the UK that are unwilling to disclose the correct information to women regarding the potential risks and illnesses associated with plastic surgery and because of this, there needs to be a better non-bias platform where women can access this incredibly important information. This document alone will not safeguard women against being ill informed or warn them of the potential risks to their health after surgery, if they chose to have Breast Implants.

I have personally been affected by faulty breast implants that rendered me ill for 14 years. I am aware that I was implanted during a time when implants were seen to last forever. However, when recently seeking advice on my 11 year old medical devices only 3 years ago, I was told by a surgeon (whom is still practising) that if my implants weren’t broke, don’t fix ‘em and that I should be fine to keep my current implants. What he should have advised me is that they needed to be replaced as they were well pass their ‘use by date’.

Due to the lack of consistency and transparency in this industry, I left that surgeons office thinking my implants were safe and fine. I trusted him and his expertise Little did I know, thanks to the lack of information available, that my symptoms were related to my failing implants and the reason I had been so poorly for many years. If the advise given to me that day had been to remove my implants, maybe my health wouldn’t have slowly deteriorated over the years to follow.

The lack of consistency and transparency was highlighted again recently when Nigel Merier, a reputable and trusted plastic surgeon, ( BAPRAS President EASAPS past president BAAPS, past president, ISAPS, ASAPS, ASPS, EURAPS member) tweeted on the 19th November that

a rep of an implant company was giving him the wrong information and that the company had told reps not to discuss ALCL!

How can a surgeon perform his duty when they are not being given the correct and potentially life changing information in the first place?

Women in the UK that are considering breast implants will continue to have their health put at risk and be kept completely in the dark if the lack of transparency continues. The anecdotal evidence around the world from women who are and have been incredibly ill with multiple symptoms from their implants is growing daily. These women are joining together through the power of social media and the internet to desperately seek answers. They are finding blogs, support groups, websites dedicated to breast implants illnesses. It is this information of symptoms relating to breast implants that SHOULD be readily available. Women are being turned away by their GPs and consultants who refuse to believe the link between the two because as of yet, nothing has been scientifically proven against breast implants. Yet in most manufacturers brochures, they will now have a statement covering themselves just in case one day it is…

Nagor Brochure online 2016 : Future Risks of Silicone

There is the possibility of risks, yet unknown, which could be associated with breast implants.

Dr Wood, one of the leading Toxicologists at Guys Hospital in London advised me that the current 10 year trials with leading breast implant manufacturers will amount to nothing. This is because there will NEVER be any conclusive evidence either way on the safety of breast implants. To have a serious medical trial done, one where you get the medical world to sit up and notice, you would need to have two groups of participants, one that would be given a placebo and one that would be given the real thing. But how would you be able to give a placebo breast augmentation? You couldn’t! There is no way you could pretend to insert breast implants inside someones body without them not realising. Bigger breasts and scars are a huge giveaway. Also, you couldn’t insert something in place of a breast implant, as you wouldn’t know if that was the cause of a reaction, because trials would need to be done on that product also. Basically you can not do a scientific trial without placebos and thus here lies the problem.

One of the main risks always noted is ; gel bleed, rupture or silent rupture. Yet when you ask any surgeon or even a toxicologist, what happens when silicone enters the body. NONE of them can tell you what happens to it or where it goes. According to Dr Wood, he told me that there is no known way of getting it out of the body. This is also backed up by plastic surgeon Dr Rita Kappel. She performed an autopsy on a lady who had ruptured implants and gel bleed for 17 years. They found silicone all over the deceased body, from her brain, to her spleen and even in her stomach. So from this, we now know that silicone can definitely be deposited around the body, but are still in the dark to the real damage it can cause. (http://clinmedjournals.org/articles/cmrcr/clinical-medical-reviews-and-case-reports-cmrcr-3-087.pdf).

THESE are the things that need to be put down on a webpage dedicated to the RISKS of BREAST AUGMENTATION. Regardless of the dated scientific studies, social media and the internet are already proving that anecdotally, breast implants have caused women to become very ill with a long list of symptoms (not all women have all the symptoms, but they will have had most of them over a period of time)

However through these support groups it is now very apparent that women who have had some or all of the following symptoms, that once the implants and all scar tissue has been removed, these symptoms lessened and even went completely over a period of 6 months – 2 years.

In response to your feed back request… This form isn’t enough. Awareness needs to be transparent and informative and easily accessible This type of awareness would not only protect all your surgeons from possibly getting a bad reputation for misinformation down the line, but most importantly it would protect the patients. Millions of people over the world are aware that smoking is bad for their health. The list of symptoms for this are scary. Yet they still chose to smoke and what makes it okay.. they have informed consent, they are choosing to do something that they know may effect their health in the future but are completely aware of the signs and symptoms. So why shouldn’t it be the same for breast implants?

I look forward to your response and hope you can help us start raising awareness.